With the city expected to get zapped with a 12 percent electric bill increase starting next month, Mayor Bloomberg was furious with the feds over the increase and said it’s coming at the wrong time.
“These utilities have to be profitable or they can’t raise money and can’t improve the service, but it’s also very hard on people and businesses to pay higher energy costs,” Bloomberg said this morning on his radio show.
“With oil going up … oil isn’t generally used to generate electricity. It’s used for your car, but all the whole energy package keeps going up. If oil goes up, some of the other sources of energy go up, including those that power the lights in your home and in this building.”
NEW YORK ELECTRIC BILLS TO SOAR 12%
The Post first reported today that starting May 28, households in the five boroughs will be socked with rate increases of up to 12 percent to run appliances — after the feds decided that power companies needed an extra $500 million a year.
That’s on top of another 4 percent state-OK’d Con Ed rate hike that kicks in today.
A typical apartment resident’s electric bill of $74 — based on 250 kilowatt hours of power each month — will go up to $86, or $12 more than last July.
An estimated $8 of that boost will come from the feds’ decision.
Businesses will be hit even harder. A small firm that paid $406 last July will shell out $477 this July — a 17.5 percent boost. About $59 of that comes courtesy of the feds.